Even though spring officially starts Tuesday at 9:15 am local time, it doesn’t look like the weather is likely to cooperate for a while. Another storm system is moving through the region starting late Tuesday night, bringing a chance of valley rain and mountain rain and snow to our area. This could end up being another fairly wet storm, with brisk winds and warm temperatures on Wednesday that could help eat up some of the valley snow left over from last week. Snow levels could slowly rise to about 8,000’ into Thursday (when the wettest part of the storm moves through) before they drop back to the valley floor Friday into Saturday with another (less wet) storm.

Rain and snow amounts could be significant, even though it looks like the main impact of the storm might be just to the south (although recent model runs have nudged it farther north.) Although rain totals in the valleys could be greater than a half an inch in some places, it’s not likely that we will see any widespread flooding out of all this. Travel over the passes could be tough between Wednesday and late Thursday night, and the National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch above 7,000’ for that time frame.